I have a lot to say about this from a user experience perspective and spoiler…. it isn’t very positive 😥 While I love Microsoft’s continual commitment to iterative improvement, here are my high-level concerns with the change:
–Increased inconsistency with Lists: SharePoint lists and libraries share a common framework for metadata and content organization because both are built on the same list architecture. Yet the front-end continues to diverge, leaving end users confused and eroding predictability.
–Fitts’s Law violation: Moving the “Create or Upload” button to the far right increases the distance to a high-frequency action, making it harder and slower to reach. Fitts’s Law tells us that the time to acquire a target is a function of distance and size. This change adds friction to a core workflow. While the blog references aligning with OneDrive UI…. the Create or Upload is also on the left there. Make it make sense.
–Information architecture breakdown: Placing Add Content Type under Add Column misrepresents its role and makes this capability harder to discover. End users rely on clear, logical pathways to configure solutions effectively and discover capabilities. This nesting creates unnecessary cognitive load and discourages exploration of features that enable robust, scalable solutions. This has been in place for quite some time, and I am truly disappointed to see that it was not addressed with this UI refresh.
These changes prioritize one type of users, in my opinion: someone interested in using AI Actions. I know Microsoft does extensive user research and I wish I could be a fly on the wall for this one to see the data supporting these changes as it does not currently align with any of my clients’ needs across company size and industry.
Want to see the changes and hear directly from Microsoft on the change? Explore the blog post in Tech Community: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/spblog/ux-updates-ai-actions–forms-in-document-libraries/4466700
Emily Mancini 